Understanding Variance
The Variance Average columns on the report measures the alignment on the opinions of your team. The lower the variance, the more like-minded people’s answers were on that statement. Conversely, the higher the variance, the more disagreement the responders have on the statement. This works similar to a standard deviation if you have some experience with statistics.
Example – let’s say you have 4 people on your team, and you have a statement with a score of 2.0. This means that on average, the group feels that they slightly agree with the statement. However, you don’t know from the score alone how much consensus or mis-alignment exists in the opinions of the responders. Did everyone give say that they slightly agreed, or did half the group strongly agree and half the group moderately disagree? Mathematically, both examples create a score of a 2.0, but they are very different situations from the standpoint of the alignment of your team. The graphic below shows 4 different ways to achieve a Score Average of a 2.0. The Variance average can range from 0 all the way to 9.24!
As the above example shows, you can get to the same Score Average in many different ways. If your team has high Variance averages, you need conversation to hear different perspectives and get people learning from each other. Remember, conflict and disagreement aren’t bad if they are handled in a professional manner. The teams that have healthy conflict do better than teams that have no conflict, or who have unhealthy conflict.
Keep in mind that the higher or lower the Score Average, the less Variance Average you will have. In order to achieve a perfect score of 10 for the Score Average, it implies that everyone had the same opinion and therefore the Variance average has to be 0.